NASA has launched the Solar Orbiter during a late-night launch that will see the spacecraft study the environment around the Sun.

The spacecraft is a collaborative mission between European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA that will last for seven years, giving scientists a better understanding of how the Sun can affect the space environment throughout the solar system.

After launch, the spacecraft separated from the rocket’s Centaur upper stage and a signal from the spacecraft was given to operators indicating that its solar panels had successfully deployed and were drawing power.

“The spacecraft is safe and pointing to the Sun,” said Cesar Garcia, program manager for Solar Orbiter at ESA.

The trajectory of the Solar Orbiter will allow its comprehensive set of instruments to provide the first images of the Sun’s poles. This trajectory includes 22 close approaches to the Sun, bringing the spacecraft within the orbit of Mercury to study the Sun and its influence on space.

The spacecraft will spend about three months in its commissioning phase where scientists will run checks on the Solar Orbiter’s 10 instruments as it takes two years to reach its primary orbit.

The study includes in-situ instruments that will measure the environment around the spacecraft, detecting such things as electric and magnetic fields, passing particles and waves. The spacecraft also includes remote-sensing instruments that will image the Sun from afar, along with its atmosphere and its outflow of material, collecting data that will help scientists understand the Sun’s inner workings.

The cruise phase will include three gravity assists that Solar Orbiter will use to draw its orbit closer to the Sun: two past Venus in December 2020 and August 2021; and one past Earth in November 2021. This will lead to the first close pass by the Sun in 2022 at about a third of the distance from the Sun to Earth. The spacecraft will continue to use Venus as a gravity assist to draw its orbit closer to the sun throughout the seven-year mission.

This project is different from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which was launched about a year and a half ago and will fly directly through the sun’s corona — the hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation in the sun’s atmosphere.